‍Are you the devil? The question came from former Trump aide Steve Bannon so we may be sure he has some experience of the satanic ways of the rich and powerful. Jeffrey Epstein denied he was Lucifer but it's a close-run thing. He was wicked in the extreme and had untold riches to attract the gullible and the greedy. And now the fall-out is really picking up the pace.

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‍The former Prince Andrew fits neatly into both categories; gullible in that he is remarkably unintelligent — thick — and craves power, standing and wealth, all of it unearned. The same goes for his daft, venal ex. Entitled and now untitled. But Peter Mandelson? His is an altogether different case and one which will bring greater lasting damage. 

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‍It shines a glaring spotlight on the judgment of the prime minister and the one quality we must expect of the elected leader of this country is good judgment. Consider the facts: We all knew Mandelson was a wrong ‘un Twice he was forced to resign from cabinets, the first from Tony Blair's when he failed to declare a loan from colleague Geoffrey Robinson of, in today's values, £750,000. Then from Gordon Brown's over his involvement in speeding through a passport for one of the richest men in the world, Srichand Hinduja. How he loves the rich.  

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‍He was not known as the Prince of Darkness for nothing; clever yes, but slippery and never to be trusted. So why appoint him as ambassador to Washington, the premier office of the diplomatic service? Consider this: in 2003 Jim Pickard of the FT got his hands on emails to and from Mandelson, while Brown's Business Secretary and de facto deputy PM, and Jes Staley, ceo of JP Morgan. They showed, among other things, that Mandelson was staying in Epstein's Manhattan apartment while his host was incarcerated for abusing and trafficking girls. In 2023 Pickard wrote 2,000 words exposing this and a year later when he met Keir Starmer, he brought up the issue. Starmer dismissed it and said that "the FT knows more about it than I do".

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‍Later, when Mandelson was ensconced in Washington, Pickard's colleague George Parker asked the prime minister, in light of all the damning evidence of his known frailties, why he had been given the job. "It's an FT obsession". was the reply and continued for good measure, that "the FT can fuck off".

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‍Now we know that all the while Business Secretary Mandelson was tipping off Epstein with all sorts of market sensitive information so that his pal could make a killing. He even urged Staley to email the then Chancellor Alistair Darling on the issue of bankers' bonuses "and gently threaten". 

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‍It is barely believable stuff and I am sure there will be more — probably worse — to come. Mandelson is obsessed with money and the dark arts and in Epstein he found his perfect partner, one who would fund him and his partner, now husband, Reinaldo, in exchange for info. I met him just the once in the 90s and that was once too often. He hoses you with smarm and you feel the need for a hot shower to wash yourself clean. But at least he didn't invite me back for a threesome as he did one of my oldest friends who politely found he had a prior appointment. 

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‍Starmer has finally woken up to this appalling man, long after the horse has bolted of course. Mandelson has resigned from the Lords before he was pushed but he must be stripped of his title which I have no doubt is overly important to him. Similarly he should be sacked as a privy counsellor and why not take his parliamentary pension away?  And if he is prosecuted for sending Epstein those confidential emails — wrongdoing in a public office but let's just call it corruption of the highest level — then the law must prevail.

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‍But back to Keir Starmer; today is not only PMQs but also Opposition Day in the Commons. He will need the performance of his life if he is to survive and I'm not sure he is capable of that. And there is no foreign trip in the diary to save him.

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‍To misquote Harold Macmillan said: "Judgment dear boy, judgment."

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‍*****

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‍Tomorrow Ireland begin their Six Nations campaign away and against France, neither of which helps the great cause. On top of that there are injuries a'plenty so I'm not hopeful. I was delighted however to read the Telegraph kicking off the series with an interview with that fine actor Jamie Dornan who follows Ireland as avidly as I do. To declare an interest, we went to the same school, Methodist College in Belfast, winner more times of the Ulster Schools' Cup, the oldest rugby tournament in the world. I need hardly add that we were not there together, indeed his headmaster was a fellow pupil, a year ahead of me at school.

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‍Dornan played occasionally in the First XV but he admits "I was never really good enough, I was Ireland's nearly man” unlike me who was the non-existent man. He made it to Ireland's Under-21 squad only for an outbreak of foot and mouth to put paid to competitive games in the province. He said that when he was asked to play a celebrity golf tournament in 2014 he was partnered with that great former Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll and confessed “I was more in awe of meeting Brian than of Meryl Streep".  

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‍Dornan is a decent chap. When I wrote the official history of Methody to mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 he was very helpful. His love of Irish rugby is infectious but in his case it also played an important part in recovering from grief when his mother died in 1998. The school ensured he immersed himself in the game and Dornan's father, a distinguished professor of ophthalmology, encouraged that. "It reminded me that life happens again", he told the Telegraph. 

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‍*****

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‍I have much enjoyed my visits to Moscow and other parts of the old Russian empire but I would hesitate about going now. Watching Panorama this week provided me with all the evidence of that decision. It was an hour-long programme following the BBC's Russia editor Steve Rosenberg as he went about his job. Almost everywhere he went he was watched and sometimes interrogated by Putin's cops. Few Muscovites would talk to him though some of the braver and the more enlightened asked for a selfie.

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‍How different from the heady days of Mikhail Gorbachev. Rosenberg has been in the job for 25 years and, apart from being an engaging sort, plays the piano rather well. On YouTube there is a 15-minute clip of him accompanying Gorby, in old age, as he sang his favourite Russian love songs. It is a delight and a reminder of what might have been. Oh for the days when this great man was trying to bring his vast country into the open. 

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‍Come to think of it, it would be good to have his old adversary Reagan back in the White House.

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‍AND FINALLY

‍You may have thought I had morphed into the Ian Christie de nos jours with my thoughts on the films Hamnet and I Swear. Well, today I thought I might bring you Melania, or at least I would if rodding the drains hadn't seemed a better option...

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‍ALAN FRAME

‍4 February 2026